


She Remembers Living

by Croik



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Croik/pseuds/Croik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red loved her city, but something about it never felt complete, until she met him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Remembers Living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kerioth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerioth/gifts).



She meets him for the first time on one of the loneliest nights of her life.

It's a chance meeting that takes place on a pair of stools at The Defrag during its grand opening. The Canal has plenty of bars, but a new one is always greeted with a certain level of interest and excitement, and Cloudbank turns out for it. A plethora of gossiping citizens flow in and out of the doors all evening to taste the latest brew and catch a song or two from the stage. A glowing board on wall reminds them that Red is due on at midnight. She's the star attraction.

She makes her debut much sooner, picking a spot at the bar so she can mingle with the patrons, encouraging them to stay. They snap photos and caption them with things like "Met #1 at The Defrag tonight" and "My angel, my muse" and Red signs a few with her fingertip. It's pleasant enough company, but when she looks around, she recognizes too few of the faces. Instead of the friends she's hoping to see there are only friendly strangers. She asks a woman if she knows Farrah Yon-Dale.

"I heard she moved out to the country," the woman says, and everyone around her agrees, not because they actually know, but because in Cloudbank, even the gossip eventually reaches consensus.

So Red sits at the bar with the strangers, and when she looks up, a man is sitting on the stool next to her. His shoulders are broad and his complexion is dark. His voice rumbles and lulls like water rushing from one pond to another, so thick she can almost taste it. It's a shame, she thinks, that people pay to hear her when they could just listen to him order drinks.

Their eyes meet, and he smiles at her, slow and warm as if he knows her. "Hey," he says. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she says, but she realizes a moment later that he's seen through her already somehow, so she tries a different lie. "I've just got the pre-show jitters."

"I know just the thing for that," he says, and when the bartender hands him his drink, he slides it to her. "Works for me."

"You get the jitters?" says Red, playfully doubtful as she eyes his physique. "I can't imagine."

But with confidence, he insists, "Every time," so she takes a sip from his beer.

They chat idly about the new bar, the canals, Cloudbank itself, until it's time for her to perform.

Red takes to the stage amidst eager applause, and she sings for her city. She sings about its sparkling lights and shining thoroughfares, and of the backbone at its core. Her heart is in her voice and everyone in the bar vibrates with her, or so she wants to believe. But when she looks out over their faces, everyone appears the same. They are all wearing different designer brands that can barely be distinguished from each other, they are all made up with OVC top-voted cosmetics and hair styles. They beam and sway with her top 5% rated rhythms and tones. Once, there had been familiar faces in the crowd, or at least, distinctive ones. But now there is only a mob, and she mourns them, and she feels guilty for her snobbery in mourning them.

Her heart is in her voice, but her heart is frail and full of conflict, and no one hears it.

At the end of her set she mingles with the patrons a while longer, offering selfies and autographs, and in the end the man from the bar approaches her again. In his face is unsteady awe.

"Are you okay?" he asks again, and he knows she's not, just like he knew it hours ago, and this time she doesn't try to hide it.

"Do you know Farrah Yon-Dale?" she asks him.

The perk of his eyebrows gives her hope. "Know _of_ her. They say she moved out to the country."

Her hope extinguishes again. "Everyone says that…."

He considers her for a moment, and she's embarrassed by how out-of-sorts she must appear to him. "Can I walk you home?" he asks.

He's so damn charming, with his wide hand open to hers, his eyes sympathetic and concerned. But she doesn't want home to be home, so she takes his hand and says, "I'd rather walk _you_ home."

It's not a long walk, thankfully, as it's a little awkward. He wasn't inviting her to anything more than company for the train ride, and she can see him dance around the topic, giving her opportunities to retract her unspoken offer without implying disinterest in her. Neither of them are used to this sort of thing. But once they're in his cozy apartment by the bay, everything falls into place. He's so strong, and so tender, and everything she needs in that moment. They're somehow able to pretend they've slept in each other's arms for years.

In the morning, he makes coffee and they lounge in bed together, watching morning color ease through the windows. Red asks, "Have you ever been to the country?"

He doesn't scoff, which is how most people respond. He looks thoughtful but a little wary, and her hope is back. "No," he says carefully. "Can't say I have."

"Do you know anyone who has?" she asks with greater insistence. "Anyone at all who went and came back?"

"No." He reclines deeply into the headboard. "Not a one."

She leans into his ribs. "Then why do we say that at all? Where is the 'country,' what does it mean? Why do people go there, and why don't they ever come back?"

He considers a moment, and the look of uncertain curiosity in his face makes her feel closer to him than ever. "I don't know," he admits, the backs of his knuckles skimming her waist. "But it sounds like you really miss your friend."

Red sinks into him, and she wants to say that Farrah is more than a friend; from the moment Farrah's art first spiraled across the sky, they were sisters. They wandered Cloudbank in the late hours together, seeking art and life in all its corners. Farrah understood that the world is not the world. The life they live is not the life they're intended for. There were others like her, too, who strove for truth and beauty amidst a city of illusions and petty pleasantries. But Farrah is gone, and the others are good, and a 63% voter approved cloudless sky will never replace what was a woman's art splashed from one horizon to the other.

"Farrah and I used to talk about the country," Red says. "We've both had dreams about it, and in our dreams, the world is a different shade. It's beautiful and broken, and you can feel it all the way through you. Not like here." She sits back on her heels to watch his expression. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you? I love Cloudbank, but sometimes it just feels so…hollow. Like we're living on glass."

He looks a little bewildered, a little worried, but there's something else in his dark eyes: he understands. He sees a part of himself in her, and it's as miraculous as it is confusing. He sits up and puts his arm around her, and she fits in the crook of his elbow so well it's like she belongs there.

"Tomorrow night, I have a show of my own," he says. "I'd like you to be there."

It sounds at first like he's changing the subject, but then she realizes, he's not. "I will."

***

Red goes to a boxing match for the first time.

She's never held more than a casual interest in sports, though she doesn't have any aversion to them, either. The arena isn't as large as some of her usual venues but it is packed, Cloudbank's excited and eager shoulder to shoulder on the benches surrounding the ring. Sybil has come with her for moral support. They haven't spoken since Farrah went away, but as they squeeze together among the spectators, that distance is forcibly removed and they laugh with each other between mouthfuls of popcorn.

Then _he_ takes to the ring. Red's already seen everything his physique has to offer, but he's a work of art beneath the lights, and she's breathless. He spots her in the crowd and his smile dazzles. Even Sybil turns a little green with envy.

The bout begins amidst exuberant cheers, and he fights for his city. Sweat glistens on his biceps and his spine is a perfect, poised curve. His heart is in his fists and everyone in the arena tenses and winces with him. Red is in awe.

But when she looks over the crowd, she again sees only the mob. 78% of them have already determined that he is going to win, and the mob is never wrong.

He wins by knock-out.

Afterwards, she bids Sybil goodnight and meets him outside the side door. Her heart is racing, and his arms are heavy as he greets her with an embrace. "You were magnificent," she says, but as she touches the edges and grooves that make up his face, she senses a distinct _lack_. He's fatigued but he's without blemish, both eyes wide and bright, lips soft, cheeks flushed but pristine. She doesn't know what she expected to find and something in her yearns.

She cups his face, and he cups her hands, and he asks, "You're thinking there's something missing, aren't you?"

"What is it?" She rises up on her toes in anticipation. "Do you know?"

"No." He tugs her hands away from his face so he can grip them tight. "I feel like something in me does, though, whenever I'm in the ring. Makes me feel like I'm not made out of glass after all."

Red goes home with him again. They stay up all night talking and whispering like children, their feet tangling. It seems an overly convenient fate, for her to have found him when she needs him most, despite them having so little in common. She can't help but wonder if the OVC has somehow staged their happenstance affair with at least 57% approval. But as he falls asleep with his head against her chest, she decides it doesn't matter if they have. He's good company and she doesn't want to be alone anymore, in her convictions or in her bed.

***

Red meets Wave Tennegan for the first time at his studio, just before she's scheduled to appear on his show. He's loud and he gestures a lot, and though she's enjoyed listening to him for years, watching him is even better. All her nerves are gone by the time she's behind the mic with him, and the questions start. They talk about her rising success, her unusual selections at Traverson Hall, even a few teasing questions about her recent interest in the boxing ring. She answers with confidence and reveals nothing more than she planned to.

Then Tennegan asks, "Have you heard at all from Farrah Yon-Dale?"

Red goes very still in her seat. "No," she replies. "I have not."

"You two are friends, no?" he presses. "Both of you are on record as citing the other as an inspiration."

"Yes, we're very good friends," says Red, and she watches him more closely than ever, sensing that he's asking more than he wants to let on. "But she didn't tell me about any plans she had to leave Cloudbank, to the country or anywhere else."

"So you don't know when she'll be coming back? I can't tell you how many of my listeners are begging to know."

"I don't know." Her heart cracks at the seams. "I don't know if she's coming back at all."

The show's producer looks at her sharply through the glass, and he motions to Tennegan to move things along, but Tennegan is only looking at Red. A smile winces across his face and the two of them share an understanding. "Ms. Yon-Dale's not the only one, you know," he says, pointedly ignoring his producer's increasingly frantic gestures. "We've had several concerned listeners call in this week saying they haven't seen even one byte of Niola Chen."

Red's heart breaks a little more, and Tennegan can see it. "You know Ms. Chen, don't you?" he asks.

"Yes," she says, her voice a ghost. "I supported her gallery addition to Goldwalk during the vote."

"They say she's gone to the country, too."

"Everyone says that." Red curls her fingers around the microphone stand. "About anyone they can't find."

The producer bangs on the glass, and Tennegan finally relents; he draw them to a commercial, and lets Red know she'll be up to sing live when they come back. He and his producer argue in the booth while Red gets herself something to drink. Everyone is smiling by the time she returns, and Tennegan introduces her to his audience anew with a song they've never heard.

Red leans in to the mic and she signs for the listeners. She sings of hurt and confusion, suffocation and struggle. She tells them the best she can that the world is not what it is, and only with courage can they climb free—courage like Farrah had, and Niola, and so many other absent friends. Courage like she can see in Tennegan's eyes as he watches from across the both. Courage his producer lacks.

That night, Red and her boxer stroll along the bay, listening to a recording of the broadcast on her phone. "You should be careful, Red," he says after it's finished. "You know how this town is: out of sight, out of mind. People can't hold on to something that's not on their voting screen every day. They don't _want_ to."

"That's not me," she says with confidence. "I remember my friends. I remember…." Her hand tightens around his and she isn't sure what comes next, only that it's buzzing inside her, an instinct she can't name yet. "There was a time when things mattered more. _People_ mattered more. Now it's like we're just…numbers in a system for the OVC to tabulate. Cloudbank was never supposed to be this. _Something_ came before this."

He draws her to a halt so they can face each other, tugging her in close. "I know," he says. "I feel it, too. And I know if anyone can do something about it, it's you." He smiles at her. "They love you. You can make a difference."

"I don't know," she says. "I just want them to hear me." She leans into him. "I want _you_ to hear me."

"I do," he promises, and they kiss, their silhouettes on the water.

***

He's more right than Red ever would have expected.

Her music continues to gain popularity. Everyone is listening to her songs, talking about her performances. They debate the meaning behind her lyrics; some call them heartfelt, others pessimistic. Some support her continued inquiries into the missing Farrahs and Niolas, while others scorn her, saying she should leave well enough alone. Anyone who would leave Cloudbank doesn't deserve praise or concern, they say. Anyone who questions the OVC or the Admin is ungrateful and should stay quiet, they imply.

Red doesn't stay quiet. She takes the stage at the Empty Set and sits with her guitar in front of a packed audience. She sings for them of the momentum she feels is sweeping them up, the system that has been reducing them into their barest codes and algorithms. She casts her heart into the void of their ears and prays for a new beginning. Some of them hear her—she can _feel_ that they hear her. Some pretend that they don't. Some hear too well.

She's halfway through the next song when she notices the commotion stir. It starts with two women near the back, arguing loudly, but Red can't make out what they're saying. The people around them begin to join in while others try to hush them quiet. But it's not until champion athlete Olmarq joins the fray that things start to spiral out of control.

"She didn't move to the country!" he shouts at a group of angry, older men. "None of them did! Open your eyes—listen to what she's saying, you damn fools!"

And then everyone is shouting, everyone is moving, and Red stutters quiet. She watches chaos erupt within the audience and she's transfixed. She's never seen people of Cloudbank behave like this, shoving and shaking each other, their precious voter opinions in complete disarray. Their anger sings back to her in minor cords. Then someone tosses a glass at the stage, and suddenly her boxer is beside her, his arm tight around her waist. She lets him pull her behind the curtains.

"She's inciting paranoia!" one man hollers as she retreats, and Administrators take to the crowd. "Shut her up!"

That night, she calms down at her Highrise apartment, watching the city from her balcony with her lover's jacket across her shoulders. "I just wanted them to hear me," she says.

"They heard you all right," he replies, handing her a steaming mug. "But you knew not everyone would be ready for it."

She smiles faintly. "You did warn me, after all."

"You're not discouraged, are you?"

Red blows across the top of her drink as she considers. "No," she says at last. "In fact…."

She hesitates, because she feels guilty admitting it, but he sees through her, as he always does. "You enjoyed it a little bit," he says. "Didn't you."

"I didn't want to start a fight. What if someone had gotten hurt?" She takes a sip. "But seeing how strongly some of them reacted, it made me feel like…I'm not alone." He gives her a look, and she chuckles. "Not _alone_ alone. You know what I mean."

"I do," he assures her, and she nestles in beneath his arm. "I'm happy for you."

Administrators arrive shortly afterward. Red answers their questions as simply and honestly as she can, for the most part. She promises them that she has no ill intent toward the Admin or the OVC. She refutes every claim that she intended on causing distress among her audience. She declines to elaborate on the meaning behind her music.

In the morning, Sybil arrives, a bundle of concern. Red gives her many of the same answers she gave the Administrators while her boxer makes them breakfast. Then Sybil asks if she intends to sing the song again at her next performance.

"I don't know," Red admits. "Right now I feel like I should just cancel it altogether. I need…time. I need to really think about what my music means to everyone, and how I should be using it. Maybe write some new material."

Sybil agrees this is best.

***

Red cancels her scheduled concerts. She withdraws from public life and everything is simpler for a while, up in her apartment, alone with her lover and her music. He says over and over that he doesn't have any talent for song, but he inspires her every day. And though she sometimes worries about the places her music takes her, the ears that will receive it, she doesn't waver. There is life in her heart and in her words she had once feared would never be hers again.

Two months into her seclusion, Wave Tennegan stops doing his radio show. No explanation is given at first, and when his young producer finally takes over in his stead, he offers only that Tennegan is taking personal time. Most people believe him. No one mentions the country.

But as Red sits in the audience at the boxing ring, she feels that too many seats are empty. The Goldwalk Gallery is quiet, and the voices left are closely aligned, not one word out of turn. There are no longer Farrahs, no Olmarqs, no Shomars. All their colors are blurring together into white noise.

"I used to love this city," she says, her feet dangling off a sofa armrest, her head in his lap. "Every part of it. Now it feels like it's barely even here. Nothing looks familiar because everything looks the same." She turns her cheek into his palm. "Sometimes I think we need to erase it all and start over."

"Not that I disagree," he says, "but does it even have to be Cloudbank? If starting over is what you want, we can do that anywhere."

She looks up at him, smiling. "You'd come with me?"

"Anywhere."

He leans down, and she hooks her arm behind his neck so she can rise up and kiss him. "Not yet," she says as they both settle again. "I haven't quite given up on it yet."

***

Darzi is gone. Lilian is gone. Preston is gone. Cloudbank is reaching a threshold where ignorance is no longer an option, and the people are drawing in tighter than ever, frightened of a nameless danger they can't even begin to imagine. Things like this just don't happen in Cloudbank and everyone wants answers.

Red doesn't have answers. All she has is song, but as she takes to the stage in front of an empty theatre, she thinks maybe their programming has thinned enough that they're ready to hear her. Only her lover and her friend make up the crowd, but she sings for them. She wants to hear the lyrics fill the space before they're ready for ears. She wants the country, by name, to resonate within the hall. When she's finished, only one of them applauds sincerely.

"When you said you were developing new music, I thought it would be more like your older work," says Sybil as they close up the venue together. "Something less controversial."

"What's so controversial about the country?" says Red. "People talk about it all the time. Now more than ever."

Sybil frowns with concern. "It's not just that. It's the way you keep trying to sound like a rebel. Who are you rebelling against?"

"I'm not rebelling against anyone. I'm just speaking my mind."

"Is there anyone to rebel against?" adds her boxer. He's watching Sybil very closely. "The Camerata, maybe?"

Red doesn't know what he's talking about, but Sybil does; she goes tight and pale, and her eyes dart away. "How do you know that name?" Sybil asks, though suddenly she can't look at them.

"It's just a rumor I happened to catch," he says, and when Red looks at him in question, he gestures that he'll tell her later. "Something about a special division of the Administration that's been poking around. May have something to do with the people that have gone missing."

Sybil stares off into the corners of the stage, distracted. Her eyes are heavy and sad beneath their lids. "Well," she says, "then I'd better introduce you."

Red follows her gaze, and she sees them, but it's too late and everything happens so fast.

A blur of light rushes toward her. She can feel its brilliance all through her skin and into her sinews, like teeth in her. It cuts across her throat and everything tingles in electric sparks. The thing fights to swallow her whole, but it falls short, and it's not until she's somewhere else, the city a stranger around her, that the cold in her stomach tells her what's happened.

She's no longer whole, in more ways than one.

Three strangers and a friend calling themselves the Camerata take everything from her. She can tell even before she takes a breath that they have ripped out the core of her. Then she finds him. Only an avatar of him is left, made of all the simple, shallower things she has grown so fond of: his strong arms, his dark eyes, his tender lips. But his core is still there. It resonates from the device embedded in him, and she suddenly feels closer to him than ever before, because she knows that somewhere inside, her missing piece is in there with him. When she holds the Transistor close, when she hums, she can hear her voice ripple out across an empty plain. There are no walls or buildings to reflect it back, and in her confusion and grief, she wonders if it's her own avatar that is the trap now, and only the Transistor in her hands is real.

"Let's just go," he says. "Just...go."

***

Red takes the onramp. She goes down five blocks and she turns left. She fights as all around them the city dissolves into empty space and deleted data. She's never had to fight like this before, but her body, made out of glass as it is, is ready and willing to rise to the challenge. She wields her lover with a power she had always thought belonged to him alone. Several times, he urges her to turn back. His support is unwavering, but he fears for her. He doesn't yet realize that she is already a ghost, and another town, another life means nothing to her when her two hearts form the sword already in her hands.

Her apartment in Highrise is intact at first, but not for long. The piers and the highways are all chewed away. The Cloudbank that has been her home and her mission fades by the hour, along with the strangers that live there. The Camerata offers a hollow confession, and though at first her bitterness is a match for her boxer's, she finds she can't hold onto it long. She understands what the voice on the terminal is trying to say. Whatever the Camerata were or are, she can't pretend she hasn't felt what they've felt, caught up in Cloudbank's never-ending flow.

Her lover puts a name to every enemy they face, but for every one she destroys, more appear. They've been here all along, she realizes. She can never erase enough of them. They are the true architects of the world.

He tells her he loves her, and it spellbinds her for a while. She realizes she's never told him the same, and she aches for her voice back so she can put it in words instead of song. But as they reach that alley at Goldwalk's edge, the world at their back a wasteland of binary whites and blacks, she realizes it's all right. She'll have her chance in the end, one way or the other.

Because in between the light and shadow there are gaps in the glass. She can see the glow of another world, one richer and deeper than the colorful illusions that have made up their reality for so long. _I know what's missing_ she thinks as she scrapes her hand against the Transistor's handle. It rises up inside her, pitching and throbbing, and she wishes for some way to tell him. _We had it, once. This is not the world we were meant for._

"Everything changing, all the time," says Royce, last of the Camerata, as Red battles through a vanguard of his discoveries. "I guess I grew weary of it."

Red was weary of it, too, before. She knows exactly what he means. But now she's full of light, and when she finally comes across a Fairview terminal, she sets the Transistor down so her hands can fly across the keys. With Royce's hovering proxy at her shoulder she asks him:

_Do you remember living?_

The monitor bobs curiously, and through it Royce says, "I want nothing more than for you to explain what you mean by that."

But he'll understand soon enough. He deserves to see the truth first hand. She can't wait to show it to him.

***

Royce is gone, like his compatriots before him, and everyone else in Cloudbank. Only Red is left behind, and there's no reason to stay. She wishes she could tell her boxer so. She could type it on a screen, write it in the sky, but it will be so much faster just to join him. She holds him tight as he begs for her to reconsider. But he'll understand soon enough.

Red takes her places beside him, takes the Transistor into herself. Their avatars will disintegrate together.

When the rest of her wakes up, her heart is pounding against her ribs. Her skin prickles with goose bumps, her eyes sting beneath the morning rays, and her limbs are sore and heavy. The long grass whips against her calves until it hurts. It _hurts_. Every cell in her body passes riches to the other, fulfilling her with sensation, and she drinks in every hum of pleasure, every pang of discomfort. The world around her is sturdy and vast, full of color vibrant and dull, beautiful and ugly, each layer creating a density she'd forgotten somehow.

 _What came before Cloudbank_ , she thinks, and she doesn't know how it's possible, only that it's real beneath her toes and in her veins. _A place we made with our own hands. Lives we lived in our own flesh, before we fled into our hollow paradise._ She is finally whole again. She reaches her hand out knowing he's close.

Five rough fingers close around hers. "Hi," he says, awed and shy like a child.

"Hey," says Red, and when he draws her closer, she kisses him. She hums against his mouth in her joy, and just to be sure he understands, she bites him, hard. He reels back, startled, and when he touches his hand to his lip, it comes away red.

His brown knits in confusion, and then recognition comes over him. _This is what we were missing._ He stares at her in disbelief, and she can't help but laugh; not at him, but in concert with him. _This is where we began._ They take each other's hands and they set off across the field, looking for the others they know are out there. The truth sings out of her.

" _This_ is the real world."


End file.
